Shantel McClendon outside of her Valencia Gardens apartment. Photo by Eric Murphy.

As a trial opened Thursday to evict a woman and her five children from their apartment at Valencia Gardens, a public housing complex in the Mission, residents there said that the complex’s management company harasses and surveils its tenants, fails to communicate with them, and can be aggressive and unfair in its enforcement of the rules.  

The John Stewart Company has been trying to evict Shantel McClendon, the mother of five children ranging from 18 months to 19 years old, for years. Since November 2017, they have given McClendon seven 14-day notices to quit, a technical term for eviction notices. McClendon said that each time she fixes the problem, management identifies another issue and she is quickly served with another notice.

“They keep on, they keep on,” McClendon said on Tuesday before the trial. “I feel like I’m being targeted, I feel like I’m being harassed.”

Residents of Valencia Gardens, a 250-unit public housing complex taking up nearly a whole block between Valencia and Guerrero between 14th and 15th Streets, said these tactics are not out of character for a management company that is overly aggressive in enforcing its rules while not doing enough to communicate with tenants.  The company became more aggressive, some tenants said, after a new on-site manager, Carlos Uribe, began working for the management company. 

“I wish there was more understanding between people in the community and the office,” said Patrick Kelley, referring to property management. “Right now they’re two separate things.”  

Kelley, who lives a few doors down from McClendon in the same building, said he had never seen anything criminal, disruptive, or out of the ordinary from her unit. Instead, he said, the biggest issue was a management company that tries to solve problems with discipline instead of a conversation. 

Judge Richard Ulmer, who began hearing McClendon’s case on Thursday, said he could decide as early as Monday if McClendon has the right to stay in the $700-a-month apartment where she has lived for 14 years. He could also move the proceedings to a jury trial. 

The main entrance to Valencia Gardens at 390 Valencia St. Photo by Eric Murphy.

During the proceedings on Thursday, the two sides fought over the history of the eviction notices. McClendon’s first notice was given in 2017 for owing $3,400 in back rent, which she was able to pay with the help of Hamilton Families, a nonprofit that works to prevent homelessness. But rent was not the only issue at that time, according to Mercedes Gavin, a lawyer for The John Stewart Company. Eight days after Hamilton Families made the payment, the company issued another eviction notice to McClendon.

Gavin said that the property management company failed to advise Hamilton Families of the other ongoing issues it had with McClendon because if the nonprofit had known, they would not have made the rent payment. 

Judge Ulmer took issue with that tactic. “It sort of sounds like you’re hiding the ball to try to get the money from them,” he said to Gavin. “Why would you try to fool someone like that?”

The bigger issue, Gavin argued, was that Rasheed Loveless, the father of three of McClendon’s children, had been staying at the apartment without authorization. The rules at Valencia Gardens prohibit overnight guests from staying more than 14 nights per year. 

McClendon said Loveless was there to help provide childcare and other help for her and her children while she dealt with the aftermath of a high-risk pregnancy.

The John Stewart Company said in its lawsuit that they are trying to evict McClendon in part because they allege Loveless engaged in illegal gambling and other unidentified criminal activity on or near the property in late 2018 and early 2019.  

Loveless is currently serving a two-year sentence in state prison on a drug charge. It’s unclear when that sentence began. 

Neighbors said they had seen no signs of criminal activity outside or near McClendon’s unit. 

“It’s pretty much just kids playing outside there,” said Teakeysha Brittany, who lives across the street.

Terrance Hall is fighting eviction from this building.
Valencia Gardens, January 2017. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Management did meet with McClendon last July to try to resolve the issue of Loveless’s unauthorized stay. They suggested that Loveless apply to be a live-in aide for McClendon to help her deal with her high-risk pregnancy and recovery. However, public subsidy regulations did not allow a family member to become a live-in aid, which management said they did not know at the time they advised Loveless to apply.

Management denied the application in late September and filed an eviction lawsuit the following day.

McClendon, 35 years old, said she’s unsure why the John Stewart Company has continued to pursue the eviction. “It’s mind-boggling how you can want something like this for someone’s family,” she said.

Earlier in the week, Ryan Murphy of the Eviction Defense Collaborative, McClendon’s lawyer, said that the property manager had been unusually aggressive with his client. Murphy said if his client loses, she will be barred from subsidized housing for years.

“This is so disrespectful to the family and the kids,” said Murphy. “It’s over-policing of low-income families. It’s just so heartless.”

McClendon said she has never had a problem with management or a threat of eviction until Uribe arrived in 2016. 

If McClendon is evicted, she said she doesn’t know where she and her family will go. Her $700-a-month rent in Valencia Gardens is thousands of dollars cheaper than market-rate housing in the area and she is currently unable to work. She said she might have to go to a shelter, something she was forced to do 18 years ago with her two youngest children before she got into public housing. “I couldn’t possibly see myself going back,” said McClendon, choking up a little. “With five kids? To a shelter?”

McClendon is not the only Valencia Gardens tenant who has experienced the threat of eviction from the new property manager.

Bridget, who started living in Valencia Gardens in 2010 and did not want to give her last name, has also faced a series of notices to quit since Uribe took over. The notices came for issues like an unauthorized pet and a sign on her front door. She also said she is being watched and followed by the complex’s security guards, who may be monitoring who comes in and out of her unit.

Like McClendon, Bridget said her problems began when Uribe took over and she had no issues with previous managers. “They were cool, they were friendly, I never got any eviction notice from them,” she said of previous management. “It was stress-free.”

She says things changed when Uribe took over. “Ever since he started, I was receiving eviction notices left to right,” she said. She keeps a binder of these notices and her communications with management.

Both tenants also noted that new cameras had been added on their street. One five-day notice to quit given to Bridget in 2016 read in part, “We have surveillance recordings showing you have had overnight guests that have not been reported to management.”

The overnight guest in question was her partner and the father of her son who lives in the unit, she said. Later, when Bridget’s mother became ill, her partner was able to become a live-in aide to care for her. But once Bridget’s mother passed away, he was again barred from staying overnight in the apartment more than 14 days per year. Bridget tried to add him to the lease, but he was denied after a credit check.

Terrance Hall (left) speaks with KPIX reporter Mark Sayer (right) during a March 7 broadcast in his grandmother’s apartment.

In March of this year, The John Stewart Company attempted to evict a teenager named Terrance Hall from Valencia Gardens. Management attempted multiple times to add him to an eviction notice issued for his grandmother while Hall was a minor. Hall’s grandmother passed away while fighting the eviction, and Hall was given his notice to vacate three days after her death.

Several other tenants not facing eviction still had complaints about treatment from security and felt that the manager was trying to surveil them and their guests. “It’s like a prison,” said Anthony Reyes in a nearby unit on Meadow Court.

For McClendon, the company has kept her and her family on the edge after more than a decade of stability in her housing. “I was safe, I felt,” she said. “Now I don’t feel safe.”

McClendon’s trial will continue Monday.

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10 Comments

  1. John Stewart Company are just straightup trash! They hire unstable people. They hire maintenance who dont know how to do thrir jobs.
    Repairs are not done.

    Government , HUD, allows them to do what they do and dont care.

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  2. Leaved in Tyler Tx. On Sec 8 choice voucher for 22 years with my two children until they were grown yes Section 8 do have their rules but a lot of apartment managers seem to learn harass tenants I have faced a few problems with managers especially the president one I just tried to make sure I pay my rent on time check my unit clean I keep to myself it was pretty hard it times when light my air condition had went out I bet you they ignored me to the fullest for several months and went cold Tim Beck summer again they did not care until I reported them to housing and then housing was kind of slow to me ignoring me and then I reported them to Austin Urban Development they sent someone out and report it I checked on the situation then they started trying to get some act right in them. Just said

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  3. I grew up in housing projects decades ago, while they may be prettier they still are a ghetto. While my children are now all grown, I put these projects in the same league as shelters, to warehouse people.

    And like the latter I think even at my age and health would prefer to sleep in my car rather make anything the government would offer.

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  4. Well, at least there’s A Judge to hear both Party’s Defense, in the Washington DC SUPERIOR Landlords& Tenant Court, The Court System doesn’t understand when serving Summons, Under Congressional , Washington DC. Law, the Defendant ” GUARANTEE A HEARING”, BUT !!! Defendants evicted without A BENCH JUDGE REVIEWS.. What’s more Disturbing This is The Nation’s Capitol of LAWS..

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    1. I can attest to this. Dc landlord tenant court is awful and the resources that they have are not helpful. I was evicted in February no notice of the eviction date I wasn’t on any of the online lists it was during the shutdown. The next day after I immediately applied for an emergency stay and tried to get help from the law students in court. The head attorney decided my case wasn’t an emergency and I couldn’t see a judge that day I was given a date 2 weeks out. I wasn’t given the 14 days of any date in any form but we had multiple visits from management inspecting the unit doing pest control and even knocking on my door asking when we were going to pay days prior then boom here’s the marshal I should have not been evicted the day I was without notice but I was unable to afford a lawyer or get any help from the courts smh

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  5. The Poperty Manager is only followi g the rules whi h sre paased down from the company. HUD also has rules which all tenants are to folliw. People illegally move in that are not on the lease. Felons, for one. That is why dont apply with the prospective tenant. They wait till they obain the unit then they move in illegally. Then there is the matter of unreported income which people bring in to the household when luving there illegally.
    While this may remain unseen to other tenants there maybe some reporting illegal activity or broken rules and they do not want their names mentioned.
    As a retired PM for 25 years in section 8 housi g all we ask is the rules to be followed, pay the rent, and keep a clean unit. If all is o eyed they can li e there as lo g as the need is there.

    Property Managers are made to look like villians but in all actuality they are there to enforce the rules and to make sure the property is safe, decent and affordable for all to enjoy.

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  6. ITS A SHAME ON THEM THE MANAGEMENT COMPANIES DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO INTERFERE WITH PERSONAL FAMILY PROBLEMS AS LONG AS THEY PAY THERE RENT ON TIME AND A FAMILY MEMBER TAKING CARE OF AN ELDERLY.

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  7. It’s seems like every affordable housing complex is doing this to their tenants and it’s sad because people who work their abuse the powers and look down on people who are in low-income housing complexes and affordable housing. They take everything from you when you make a little bit of money and expect for you to find security for somewhere new to move with $4 left your name which they know is impossible. Affordable housing is suppose to help you not burden you or stress you out and that’s what they have been doing. Stressing and burden tenants.

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  8. Its a shame to hear this & i know exactly how they feel…i am currently going through the very same thing..only thing makes mine different is that its a Crisis Center / Domestic Violence shelter trying to evict me & my 2 children even though they knowwe have no place else to go.

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